Thursday, March 27, 2008

A different kind of bird

Last night, I was sitting at Knology Park, watching the Reds play the Jays. In the fifth inning, there was a loud double boom. I thought it was thunder, or maybe gunfire. But the people around me explained that it was actually the space shuttle.

They usually don't like to land at night, but weather had delayed the planned daytime landing. They decided to go ahead and do a rare night landing. The sound I heard was the sonic boom. There are actually two booms: one for the nose, one for the tail. Most aircraft are so small that you only hear one boom. But the shuttle is so large - over 100' long - that you actually hear the double boom.